Figurski at Findhorn on Acid

by Richard Holeton

Frank "Many-Pens" Figurski, paroled after serving six years for killing Professor Quentin Kingsley, is on a mission. Having discovered what is apparently a seventeenth-century mechanical pig washed up on the beach at Findhorn Park, Frank embarks on a quest to determine the pig's authenticity. But it won't be easy, because Frank isn't the only one obsessed with antique porcine contraptions, and he's on acid.

Will Frank beat The No-Hands Cup Flipper and Fatima Michelle Vieuchanger to the punch, and definitively differentiate the original pig from the forgeries? Or will Frank lose his way in endless trailer parks, desert strip malls and spaceships, allowing his competitors to bring home all the bacon?

Holeton's hypertext mixes numerology, science fiction, Brit prog rock, eighteenth-century robotics, Boy Scouts and classic TV with a charming cadre of unreliable (and occasionally delusional) narrators, dishing up a comic, frantic narrative that recalls Monty Python in its absurdity and erudition.

"Holeton's hypertext belongs in the tradition of screwball comedy, but it raises that tradition to the level of metaphysics -- a cross between Borges and the Marx Brothers." -Michael Tratner, Bryn Mawr College

Richard Holeton is Head of Residential Computing at Stanford, where he formerly taught writing for eleven years while also conducting research in student computer-mediated communication. He holds a BA in English from Stanford and an MA and MFA from San Francisco State University, where he completed the first electronic (hypertext) thesis. Holeton's fiction has appeared in Black Ice, Five Fingers Review, and other literary journals. He is the recipient of an Artists Fellowship from the California Arts Council and of the Transatlantic Review Award from the Henfield Foundation. His textbooks for writing courses include the anthology Composing Cyberspace: Identity, Community, and Knowledge in the Electronic Age (McGraw-Hill, 1998).

Figurski at Findhorn on Acid
by Richard Holeton
Eastgate Systems
ISBN 1-884511-40-6
(CD for Windows and Macintosh)
$24.95